Pumpkin Seed Praline

If you wanted to call this pumpkin seed brittle, be my guest. To paraphrase Juliet Capulet, a praline by any other name would taste as sweet. Not that, actually, this is incredibly sweet- the point about praline is to have the caramel just on the cusp of bitterness so although it's sugary it isn't cloying and the bottle green pumpkin seeds that get strewn in add an oily savouriness of their own. What you end up with is a shard of brittle that looks like a great chunk from a medieval stained-glass window.
This will work fabulously wish many nuts: blanched and flaked almonds, extravagant macadamias, pecans etc. However the important thing is that you buy good, fresh organic ones not the bleached supermarket kind, and although it is true that toasting any nut or seed brings out the flavour, in this context it would mean too much oil would leak into the caramel and you'd get soft chew, not crunch.

All the ingredients are given in the metric system, but it's much easier to use a set of cup measures or even a small mug- it's the ratio that's important which is, 1 cup sugar, to 1/2 cup water to 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds.
200g granulated sugar
125ml water
Good pinch sea salt
125g pumpkin seeds

Place a sheet of lightly oiled foil, or if you own a sheet of non stick silicone do use that, over a baking sheet.
In a medium saucepan with a thick base, mix the sugar, water and salt together until the sugar is immersed and beginning to dissolve and then remove the fork or other stirring utensil and set it well aside before you set a medium-high heat under the pan. Stirring at heating stage is forbidden and will cause your caramel to crystallise. As the sugar melts, gently swirl the pan to help the process along. Without leaving the pan unattended, allow the sugar to boil for about 6 minutes until it thickens and turns a deep gold, but you mustn't let it go very dark or it will taste bitter. Switch off the heat and quickly scatter over the pumpkin seeds and swirl to cover them in the caramel. Pour it onto your sheet of foil and let it set calmly at room temperature before peeling away the foil and snapping into shards, ready to be dunked into strong black coffee or scrunched over vanilla ice cream.

A Nanny McPhee picnic- Strawberry Vanilla Jam and Lemonade

The age of picnics is far behind us, but that doesn't mean picnic food is to be tossed aside as well. These two recipes evoke a perfect Summer scene accompanying the Famous Five or Nanny McPhee on a spread blanket dotted with different dishes. While that ideal is outdated, these characters all lived in the grey age of Victorian austerity and where 'lashings of boiled egg' were considered an enormous treat, I implore you to conjure the same amount of joy from a picnic comprising of kale smoothie and spiralised cauliflower.
Yes these recipes are old-fashioned, yes these two foodstuffs are nothing you can't buy in any shop and yes they take a moderate degree of kitchen pottering, but that is why they are such wonderful things to make. Just a jar of luscious, jewel-red strawberry and vanilla jam to be eaten with thick slices of white bread and a thermos of fuzzy lemonade will leave everyone enamoured with glee in the park- despite the pain of plastic forks and paper plates to be disposed of later, but so ist das Leben. And unlike Miss McPhee, when you want these recipes, they will be here for as long as you desire.
This doesn't make a huge amount of jam, I filled 4 medium jars with it but it lasts a good year in well-sterilised jars and small amounts is the easiest way with making preserves; great vatfuls of conserve are difficult to finish in your alloted time and difficult to boil with the rapidity you need for jam. The lemonade here will be enough to serve an intimate group of 4-6 but the recipe is a doddle to half or double.

Strawberry Vanilla Jam
1kg small, underripe strawberries (crunchy sour ones from the supermarket are counterintuitively best here)
1 kg jam sugar (this isn't preserving sugar, you need to look for the extra pectin advertised on the packet)
Juice of 1 lemon
3 vanilla pods

Before you begin, you must ensure your chosen jars are sterilised. Any jars will do, you can buy kilners especially but I keep any jar with a nice shape and pretty lid for preserves. The easiest way to sterilise them is to put them in the hottest dishwasher cycle, and once they're done leave them in the hot machine until ready to use. The other method is more labour intensive but still easy: scrub jar and lid well in scalding hot soapy water, rinse them in more hot water then place them on a baking tray in a low oven (150 degrees) for 10 minutes to dry, then switch the oven off and leave them in there to stay warm.
Place a saucer or small plate into the freezer (this will allow you to check the jam later)
Hull the strawberries then place them in a very large, strong pan with the lemon juice and heat them gently until they begin to break down a little. Splay open the vanilla pods and scrape out as many black seeds as you can and then throw the pod and seeds into the pan. Add all the sugar and bring to the boil over medium heat and boil for 5 minutes.
Take the saucer out of the freezer and blob a small bit of jam onto it then leave for a moment. Push your finger into the jam and you should see it ripple or wrinkle. If it doesn't so much, remember the time that you spent checking this with the jam boiling should cover any uncertainty. If it doesn't wrinkle at all, leave to boil for a few more minutes then check again.
Switch the jam off the heat and leave for 20 minutes so the fruit disperses itself evenly amongst the jelly. Fish out the vanilla pods, scraping them against the side of the pan to squeeze out as many spare seeds as possible then rinse and dry them to be placed in a jar of caster sugar to make vanilla sugar. Then, take a masher to the berries so they crush a small amount more (you certainly don't want a complete mush) and give a final stir before pouring into the jars. If you want to use a jug for this, the jug must be sterile too but a ladle is fine for this task. Gingerly screw the lids on then allow to cool completely before labelling.

Lemonade

2 medium sized lemons (I don't buy unwaxed lemons and I have to say I don't mind using waxy ones here, but if you do mind scrub the wax off in hot, hot water)

1 litre chilled water (if you want it fizzy use half soda water)

75g granulated sugar (5 tbsp)

Lots of fresh ice

Chop up the lemons, discarding the head and tail ends and put them all into a jug blender with the sugar and blitz until the lemons are a pureed mulch. This may seem alarming, but it's the quickest way to make homemade lemonade- most other recipes call for steeping chopped lemons in the water and then making a simple syrup, and using the whole fruit gives a wonderful bitter intensity. With the motor running, add the water then strain the whole lot through a fine sieve. The lemon puree leftover I frankly discard, but adding this to a marmalade being made would add a divine lemony hit. Chill well before pouring into glasses or plastic cups.

If you wanted, and this is a special preference for my mother, muddle a sprig of mint in your fist then leave it to infuse the lemonade while it chills in the fridge. And also, as another variant, you can throw in a handful of frozen raspberries or strawberries and make a lovely sunny jug of pink lemonade

Roasted Pork Shanks with Beer and Crunchy Crackling

This recipe had far less humble beginnings. I came across it first from Nigella Lawson, of course, and immediately recreated it, but in a brasher fashion than the recipe ever was intended. I called it ale braised pork shoulder and seasoned it with what I described as 'European spirit' which involved heady amounts of juniper, which I'm afraid I struggle with since an event at New Year's which involved a bottle of cheap gin and no glasses... What the recipe really derives from is something eaten so often in Germany, but so tragically underrated and it starts with the humble pork knuckle, or hock.
The best way I can describe pork knuckles (or shanks, a similar cut which I've used here) is actually with the language from where the dish hails. The word for wrist in German is roughly 'Kneckle' and the wrist of the pig is essentially what a pork knuckle is, slightly prior the actual joint. Of course nowadays the main, or indeed sole, translation of wrist is 'Handgelenk', literally meaning hand joint. When the hock is cured (and you must make sure that they aren't when you make this) it sometimes is called 'Eisbein' for its' bone's use in history to make ice skates to go parading over frozen rivers. This is how gratifying the German language is: not only its reliance on guttural consonants such as Z or K (say 'ziemlich' aloud, it will make your day) but their literal method of constructing words make for simple poetry.
The dish itself is actually incredibly simple, and is what home cooking is all about- the bronze shanks glazed in ale and surrounded by angular pieces of potato, which soak up some of the beer and end up looking inexplicably like burnished mango cubes. The best part is all effort for the roast ceases once it's in the oven, so for all it takes hours, you needn't do a thing save for a little basting. To serve with go for some steamed green vegetables- something mustardy and sulphurous like leeks or cabbage or go further into the land of rye and veal and open a jar of sauerkraut.

2 pork shanks, or knuckles with the rind scored
3 tsp coarse salt
3 tsp peppercorns
3 tsp caraway seeds
3 cloves garlic, peeled
250ml dark ale but not stout
4 red potatoes, peeled and cut into roastie-sized cubes

Before you begin you must make sure you are in the best position for crunchy crackling. That means the rind must be scored well and it is free of clingfilm and had a few hours for the rind to air dry, and the oven is preheated to a blisteringly hot 220 degrees Celsius. If the rind is still moist then take a hair drier to it- no joke.
In a pestle and mortar grind the salt, pepper and seeds to a coarse powder then grind or mince in the garlic and mix to a gluey rub. Rub it all over the shanks until you can see the score marks in black- that's the easiest way to tell. Place them in a roasting tin and put them in the oven for their first blast for 20 minutes.
Once they've had their blistering first cooking time, turn the oven down to 150 and slow roast it for 2 hours. By then the rind should have begun to bubble and erupt as though it's got the bubonic plague, in the most appetising way.
After the 2 hours, add the potatoes under and around the shanks and then pour in the beer, making sure to hit the pork with the stream of ale.
Roast for another 1 1/2 hours, basting every half hour or so with beer then blast it again at 200 for another 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place the shanks and potatoes on a board to rest. Don't panic, if the crackling feels a bit too soft at this stage, the rest will give time to solidify any leaking fat and the crackling will be as solid as a rock. Cover the board with foil or scrunched up parchment paper and rest for a good 20 minutes- I always like to give meat a generous resting period.
To serve, break apart the crackling into amber shards and shred the butter-soft meat with a couple of forks. Instead of a gravy, I just add a dabble of water into the tin to deglaze all the sticky bits- you end up with a runny syrup rather than a gravy but that's how I like it.

Ragù Bolognese

If there's one word that you can describe Britain's culinary decrees with, it's stubborn. Don't worry, I don't mean that in such a callous, unpatriotic way- in fact, this capriciousness has plenty of merits: no new-wave, hipster, chia-seed-age foodie can alter a good old steamed syrup sponge or toad in the hole, and that's how it should be. Similarly, we have our own homespun version of what is now called Bolognese, although it really isn't, and it's lovely and makes a great foundation for cottage pie or lasagne, but I've covered them before, and until you try the proper, deep Italy confection, you will not know what ragù Bolognese is truly about.
Real Bolognese is thick, rich, tomato-concentrated and fragrant which is why, as the Italians have always said, you need only a small dollop amongst a steaming bowl of pasta, which shouldn't be spaghetti (accompanying ragu with that is believed to have been conceived in New York), instead go for something denser like penne, although no one said you need pasta at all. I love it in a bowl with some good bread dunked in. For what goes on top, parmesan is traditional but if you want something gooier and more toothsome, go for some sharp cheddar. I don't think Italians would sneer too much at it, because believe it or not English cheddar is growing popular in Italy.
If you want to go ultra authentic, you need three meats, not two. Split the beef with minced pork on top of the pancetta and add 175g chicken livers that have been coarsely chopped and soaked in milk for at least a day to draw out bitterness. All that is an expense and a faff, but by all means go for it if it takes your fancy, however an easier option I often take in meat sauces is to add some lamb liver, finely chopped in with the mince for depth and a bit of vitamin A.
Normally when I say add fresh herbs I mean in the regime of 'only if you've got them in the house' but the fresh basil here is crucial for fragrance and to give a wild coyote call to make the herbs added previously jump into flavoursome action.
What's great about meat sauce is that because it's such a basic staple standby, you can double or even triple this recipe then divide it amongst various plastic bag lined tuppawares and when cool, freeze. When they're solid unmould the bag and keep that in the freezer and save your tuppaware box. From this point you have lasagne and cannelloni galore- all it takes is an overnight fridge thaw.

150g chopped pancetta (you could use regular bacon or lardons here, but don't even think of using back bacon- the fattier streaky is what's needed)
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
2 sticks celery, finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, finely chopped
Pinch of chili flakes
500g minced beef (or 250g minced beef and minced pork)
60g tomato puree
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
200ml water
250ml red wine, port, white wine, dry sherry, whatever's to hand
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
125ml single cream
Large bunch of fresh basil, chopped-

In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan heat some olive oil and cook the pancetta until rendered and slightly crispy. Add the vegetables and saute for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic and thyme and rosemary and then add the beef and cook until brown and crumbled, then add the tomato paste, the alcohol, chopped tomatoes, water (which is just the tomato tin filled halfway and while you're at it, swill the other tin too), bay leaves and chilli flakes.
Leave partially covered on a low heat for a few hours to simmer and reduce.
Season well, do it here so you don't add too much salt before the sauce has reduced and thus concentrated,  with pepper and lots of nutmeg and then ooze in the cream and add the chopped basil, leaving some to sprinkle on top.

A suggestion for Kippers

Writing this in front of this week's episode of Masterchef, displaying an unwavering parade of sugary desserts, I am reminded of how my savoury tastes are so much stronger than any sweet tooth I have.

And that's largely down to fish.

As much as I love, unoriginally, fried cod or plaice, I adore the more maligned but much more salubrious oily fishes- especially the ones that are so unfashionable you can pick them up wrapped in their smelly blanket of clingfilm for less than a pound. Today, that fish is kippers. 

After I picked them up very cheaply from a supermarket shelf and stashed them into the icy depths of my freezer, I researched using solely the masterpiece of Jane Grigson's English Food what to do with them. She suggested either piling them on to toast after cooking them or making a fish paste. Both options sound divine but the former is a little too austere and the latter a little too old fashioned, so I combined the two, and should you do the same this is how it should be undertaken.

Take 75g of really, really good and soft unsalted butter and mix in some salt and pepper, a good tsp of mace and as much fire of chilli powder or cayenne that you want. These are the seasonings Grigson suggests for kipper paste. When well combined, you can either just leave the butter to spread normally onto some toast or go the retro mile and splatter it onto a large piece of cling film, wrap it up like a sausage, and roll it gently and lightly into a rough cylinder. Chill in the freezer for a few minutes after which it will have firmed up and you can shape it into a tighter roll, then place it back in the freezer so it's really solid.

Take two raw and prepared  (gutted and without a backbone) kippers; smoked and the colour of cornflakes, or unsmoked are fine, although I don't think you'll come across a kipper that hasn't been smoked nowadays. Place them in a large Pyrex jug or roasting tin and cover with recently boiled water and cover with a plate or even a lid should your chosen vessel come with one. Leave this for 10 minutes, by which time the fish will be melting and unctuous. This cooking method will also work with many oily fish, bar salmon, such as mackerel and pilchards. 

While that steeps lightly, dress a green salad with balsamic based dressing, unwrap the chilled butter and slice into rounds and warm up some plates- I tend to do this under the grill on a low heat. This is so that the icy butter will soften on the plate before you try and spread it on your toast. We all know that it is soul destroying trying to spread hard butter on soft toast. 

When the fish is done, take the skin off which is easier than you can imagine thanks to this gentle cooking, and flake into rough chunks onto a plate. Any sizable bones can be taken out, but don't lose sleep over tiny ones still left in the flesh. Spritz over some fresh lemon juice and scrunch over some salt and pepper, but only very lightly- you need to taste the fish over anything else. To serve, spread the butter over some wholemeal toast or good crusty bread, and mulch over some fish. Have the optional addition of the the green salad on the side.

Prawn Cocktail

Although I hate reiterating recipes, something needs to be done about prawn cocktail. Recently, perhaps a few months ago, I took a trip with my family to a lovely local gastro-pub called the Boathouse. Yes, this does mean their speciality is fish. However, I came across an atrocity before we even hit drinks- prawn cocktail with 'Bloody Mary' sauce. I have to say I don't want to meet the Bloody Moron who came up with that; how on earth are humble little prawns supposed to stand up against vodka and celery salt? It was this, noticing subsequent restaurants not even offering the beloved starter on their menues; and a read of Nigel Slater's 'Toast' that addresses how magical the dish was in its in heyday that prompted to tell you again how to make a quintessential, though never groundbreaking, prawn cocktail. Isn't the world in enough of a state as is without it being forgotten?
The foundations of a good prawn cocktail is where we start. I've always used iceberg, despite its reputation, and always will, and recommend you always do, too. The starter hales from pre-seventies and iceberg didn't actually appear in British grocery shops until the eighties. What they would have used are little baby gems, roughly shredded. You could do the same, but for me, their slightly rubbery texture is already covered by the prawns and they just don't stay as crisp after being swathed with Mary Rose sauce. Use about a quarter of a small head of iceberg to feed 4-6 and shred it very finely. Then, as if making a comfy nest, line the bottom of some pretty glass bowls or wide glasses with the lettuce. If you insist on going for the little gems, a fabulous touch that deviates outside of tradition, though still comfortably, is to use the leaves of the lettuce as boats and spoon in a delicate pile of prawns in the centre of each bit of lettuce. These can be popped straight in the mouth with no cutlery business.
Next we're onto sauce. I don't need to harp on anymore about how the only sauce a prawn cocktail should ever witness should be Mary Rose. This entails firstly 6 heaping tbsp of mayonnaise or salad cream. Lots of people, people probably more qualified than me, will tell you to make your own mayo. You can if you want, but for 99% of Britain, 6 tbsp mayonnaise means opening a jar of Hellman's, so that's what I do. Next you need 1 tbsp of rich, intense tomato puree. Dollop it in with great aplomb. After that, for a bit of heat, slash in some tabasco which is entirely to taste but obviously go slow-that stuff is vicious. Next you need the juice of just half a lemon for now and then give it all a gentle stir- it doesn't take much for them to amalgamate. The next crucial beyond crucial step is to taste it. Add more lemon, more tabasco, more tomato or more salt if it needs it, but also it's really important to have the confidence to say at this point that it's perfect as it is.
Now for the prawns. This is where people go the most mad. Long-haul imported, thawed, big-toe sized tiger prawns just don't play here as they would in a more new age recipe. Go for fresh water, small, delicate little commas (as I've read them described) and 200g of them; buy them ready cooked from the fridge or freezer section of the supermarket. Fold them into the sauce and then dollop the cocktail into the cluster of prepared lettuce. Finally, for a bit of zazz, sprinkle with sweet smoked prapika or even better for taste and even better to show the light 80s influence on this recipe, lightly crushed pink peppercorns.

A few thoughts, mostly about chicken

When others see things, they see only what is ostensible. A field, a field, the grass, the grass, the cow, the milk. No. I look further. For example, when others slap raw, pasty chickens, breast bulging and legs craning, into their trollies at the supermarket many will just see their economic purchase, and later their little boys and girls' beaks gaping wide for lashings of bronze meat and golden gravy. The dog would perhaps make a meal of the silver foil. Now of course I won't pretend they're oblivious to the true history of what they're buying, but when it comes down to getting the cheap whole bird when you're in a rush to leave the shop and the family are waiting hungry at home, who looks any further?
Well I do. What I see is firstly the colourless, beakless and souless bird cooped up in a rusted cage- the jagged metal woven like a hunting net. I then see the chicken struggling legs up (leg or breast?) as it breezes towards the terrifying swirling blade. The chicken swishes and thwaps and its feathers flash at the menacing contraption, but for all its efforts to escape it, it is reminded by the blood of his brothers that spurt out of their craggy neck wounds that this is the humane way to go. Many of the brethren are still squawking feebly, however- the machine may sever the jugular but seldom does it do it clean enough for a swift passing.
My mother has normally cut me off at this point- the notion that she could be plunged into boiling brine to separate her skin which is quite as flabby as an unrendered hen's from her flesh just as easily is enough to put her off the dinner which I fight the rights for in the first place. And then we would be in trouble; if the meal isn't eaten the chicken's packaging plastered with a proud, or as my father would say, smug, 'free range' sticker wouldn't remind us at what such good, morally structured people we were but how we wasted a good roast dinner last week. So I bite my tongue until it's needed to start mulching this shred of roasted poultry. Although, I scarcely needed to chew it; it was oh so tender the way mum cooks it. I was about to remind her that due to this being free range, we've saved electrictiy by the shorter cooking time because you do know, don't you, that the fat laced through a free range chicken conducts heat better than the lean sawdust of a factory bird? I resist again because mother was just biting into a roast potato, and the moment your incisors break the crunchy carapace to reveal blurringly soft potato is not a moment to be interrupted.
When the bird's scrawny carcass, as bare as a Scotchman's knee, is wheeled away to the bin I pipe up that the bones can be frozen to make excellent stock when the occasion demands but my mother dumps the thing into the green recycling and states, with a clipped upper lip, that bones are better served in developing countries to help compost develop- she finishes with the defiant and sarcastic rhetorical question of 'would you rather solve world hunger or have a good chicken soup?'. She beat me and perhaps her notion that what I was doing wasn't wholly making the slightest of differences was true, but as the mountain of 'free range' plastered plastic paraphernalia grew ever larger in the recycling bin, I knew I was doing the right thing nonetheless.

Haha- now I explain what this exercise has been about. I know I'm not much of a writer, but I felt that creating this character, an uppity little boy (or girl if you'd prefer to envision that) is a good way to present my view (or rather, not my view) about the tender subject of free range meat. Although this young character's self righteousness and vivid imagination does draw similarities with me, I'm afraid he's not me. When I can, I'll buy a free range chicken for Sunday lunch, I always prefer to buy free range eggs and if I'm lucky enough to have game, it must be free range for me, although on the whole I'll never be the person to live by free range organic matter. I'd love to be, don't get me wrong, and I have no illusions about the horrors contained in the livestock industry (although conditions have certainly been improving) but I'm afraid that the factory farmed meat is there to be bought, and if you can't afford double the price for the free range meat, then you simply can't buy it. I've had a factory farmed turkey for Christmas dinner two years in a row now and to me the taste isn't inferior and the far cheaper price tag makes it the only option for me. It's brutal but true. The factory farmed chicken may well be a martyr on top of a meal, but the meal is still there to be had and feeding must occur. I don't think any meat should be served with a side of guilt. All I feel is that you should know what you're eating, what the animal's life was like and why you're eating it. Think about it every time you buy and consume the meat, and never take it for granted, and if you're one of those who believes in not consuming meat at all then you don't need to me to tell you that vegetables alone can be just as exciting and delicious. My involtini got from my Uncle's recipe notes and Lorraine Pascale's showstopper of raised nut roast pie (coming soon) will be proof of this also.