Autumn Lunch for 3

A quick note: on Friday morning last week, my brother Daniel left on a trip to Japan. It's going to be very quiet around my house for the next 9 weeks. Not to mention the mountains of leftovers that are inevitably going to pile up. Aaah...

Anyway, today for lunch my parents and I had Nigella's AUTUMN LUNCH FOR 6, in halved quantities.

323. Ragoût of wild mushrooms
324. Oven-cooked polenta
325. Cheeses with bitter salad
326. Stewed apples with cinnamon crème fraîche

In my most recent progress report, I mentioned that unusual ingredients will be featuring strongly in the next couple of months. For today's lunch, we needed a few: crème fraîche, gorgonzola, assorted mushrooms and chicory. I had initially planned to get up early on Saturday morning and go to Prahran Market with my dad, but I kinda stayed out late on Friday night and ended up sleeping in… whoops. (In retrospect, I have no idea what part of my brain thought it would be conceivable for me to get up early on a Saturday morning).

So Dad, with all his quick-thinking intelligence and endless patience, suggested we go to Leo’s supermarket, a mere 5 minute drive away from home. We used to go there quite a bit when I was younger, but not so much recently for some reason.

And oh my god, Leo’s was awesome! They had all the best ingredients, in the one convenient supermarket. They’re a bit pricier than Coles or Safeway, but so much better!

We got chicory, gorgonzola dolce, proper French crème fraîche, interesting mushrooms (photo below), quinces, chicory, radicchio, marinated octopus, dolmades, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Leo’s rocks! And because it’s so conveniently located, we managed to get back home in time for me to cook lunch.

This recipe for polenta doesn’t involve much work at all. All you have to do is heat up some stock, gradually whisk in the polenta, then stir it over heat until it boils and thickens.


Polenta

Then you spread it into a buttered dish, cover with foil, and shunt it in the oven for an hour.


Polenta

Now, the mushrooms. These are the ones I got from Leo's - button mushrooms, swiss brown, and a "3-in-1 gourmet pack" with enoki, shiitake and pink oyster mushrooms.


Mushrooms


Chopped Mushrooms

To transform these mushrooms into ragoût you need to cook onion, garlic and celery until softened, then add red wine, marsala, a bay leaf and some thyme. In a separate pan, you cook the mushrooms in lots of butter and oil until softened, before adding more wine and marsala and letting it simmer. Once the wine in both pans has simmered away, you add the onions to the mushrooms. Then you add flour and hot stock to the now empty onion-pan, cook it until it's a bit thicker, and then pour that into the mushrooms before letting the whole thing simmer for 10 minutes.

And if you think that sounds confusing - it was. I was extremely glad when I got to the "simmer for 10 minutes" stage, after having used at least half my pots, pans and utensils.

While it was simmering, I made the salad. Very simple and delicious it was too. It's just chicory leaves tossed with gorgonzola cheese, and a strong dressing (oil, vinegar and a couple of anchovy fillets). Actually, Nigella says to use lemon juice, but I had none, so white wine vinegar it was.


Chicory - not available at all supermarkets, but conveniently packaged and sold at Leo's!


Gorgonzola dolce - Oh my god DROOL.

I have to admit, all the time I was making lunch, I kept picking at that gorgonzola - cutting off little pieces, putting them on a chicory leaf and eating it. Amazing. Actually, it was so compulsive that I think it's amazing we had any left for the actual lunch.


mushroom ragout


Polenta


chicory salad


Plate

Mmm'hmm... this was an absolutely gorgeous lunch! I never really liked polenta before, but this version, strongly flavoured with vegetable stock, was delicious. I'm always a big fan of mushrooms, and I loved the different textures and mushroom flavours in it. Obviously, I adored the salad, but not my parents - they get spooked by blue cheese and don't like the strong flavour. Such a shame, I had to eat most of the salad by myself. Sigh.

We cleaned up the kitchen while I prepared the dessert. This one's very quick and simple. The apples are peeled, cored and cut into pieces, and then stewed with sugar, a cinnamon stick and orange juice. You only need to cook them for a couple of minutes until slightly softened. As for the crème fraîche, all you need to do is stir in some calvados and cinnamon.


apples and crème fraîche

It was a very light, non-stodgy dessert. The perfect way to finish off a lovely lunch.

Soup and Béchamel

So here comes the first variation on béchamel – cheese sauce. It’s the same thing as béchamel, but with a pinch of cayenne added at the start, and grated cheddar added at the end. Boom boom, no sweat. Nigella gives the cheese sauce recipe, but doesn’t suggest a use for it, so I looked to another domestic goddess, my friend Clarice, (a.k.a. DG) for an idea. She has a recipe for a cheesy aubergine bake, which sounded too delicious to pass up. I made it for lunch today, and in addition, I decided to make Nigella’s vegetable soup, which directly follows the béchamel recipe in the Basics etc. chapter.

313. Cheese Sauce (Basics etc.)
314. Vegetable Soup (Basics etc.)

The vegetables in the vegetable soup are an onion, carrots, a turnip, a parsnip, a potato, a stalk of celery, and a leek. On the page, it looked like a lot, but fabulously, when I walked into Coles, I discovered this thing called “Soup Mix”, which contains all of those vegetables (except the leek), in correct quantities, neatly shrinkwrapped and arranged on a Styrofoam tray, for only $2.97. SCORE! I did buy a separate leek though; it was $1.28.


soup mix

Anyway, the soup is very easy to make. You start by peeling and chopping all the vegetables…


cut and diced

…and then chopping them medium-fine in a processor. From there, you cook the vegetables gently in some oil and butter until softened, add a litre of stock and a bouquet garni. Then you can just leave the pot alone, letting the soup simmer for about 40 minutes.

While this was simmering, I got on with DG’s aubergine bake.

This dish has 3 components made in 3 different pans (aubergines, tomatoes, white sauce), which can either be done all at once or one after the other depending on how dexterous and confident you are! The cheeses do make a difference, but feel free to substitute them depending on what you have in the fridge!

I was feeling quit dexterous today, (and hungry too!), so I made it all at once. DG says to use mozzarella cheese in the cheese sauce, but as Nigella's cheese sauce uses cheddar, I felt that I had to go with that option. Basically, for this recipe, you fry eggplant slices and tomato slices until slightly softened, and then layer them in a baking dish with cheese sauce and feta cheese.


cheese sauce


1st layer


cheese sauce and tomato


Feta


Ready for oven

Clarice says to finish with a layer of aubergine slices, and then sprinkle with grated parmesan, before baking at 200C for 20-30 minutes. When it was cooked, it looked all hot and bubbly, so I let it sit, out of the oven, while I finished off the soup.

To do this, all you need to do is add a bit of sherry to the pot, and then process the soup until it reaches a desirably soup-like texture, (which all depends on preference). I like mine to be smooth enough that you don’t see the vegetables, but chunky enough for you to feel them. If that makes any sense at all. I was kinda scared whizzing up piping hot soup, but I did it on a low speed, and covered up the processor chute, so luckily there were no dangerous spurts of hot liquid anywhere.


piping hot soup

And then it was time to eat.


Baked bake – served with balsamic salad


Soup bowl

Nigella’s vegetable soup is amazing. Daniel only took one spoonful before declaring it “instantaneously brilliant”, and I must say I totally agree with him. What a simple and delicious way to eat your vegetables.

I absolutely loved Clarice's cheesy aubergine bake, but I knew all along that I would. I mean, a recipe by Clarice? Containing aubergines? Tomatoes? 3 cheeses? You can't go wrong with that!

I’ve been very efficient these past couple of days.

Yesterday, when I went shopping for the garlic and chilli prawns, I also picked up the ingredients for a few recipes from the Cooking in Advance chapter, which I thought would be useful. You see, I’m working every night this week, and am quite keen to have a few pots of different foods stashed in my kitchen, so that we all have something nice to eat even when we're not all home at together.

I made the onion mush whilst I was making last night’s dinner. After dinner my family and I went to see the latest Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which was totally brilliant!), and after returning, we sat around the kitchen chatting and drinking tea while I made the aubergine moussaka.

188. Onion Mush

This onion mush is exactly what its name implies - a very soft, very sweet and oniony mush, which I would think of putting in sandwiches or burgers. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the onion relish that we serve in our mini beef souvlakis at work. Nigella says you could also use it as to replace raw onions in recipes.

I was a bit alarmed once I’d sliced up all the onions (in a processor, of course), as one kilo of onions gives you a massive pile of onion slices.


Onions

However, once cooked, the onions collapse to a more modest amount. You have to cook them on a very, very low heat, covered by both a layer of foil and the pot’s lid, with some butter, oil, water and Marsala for a few hours until they reduce and soften up totally.

It was halfway through the cooking process when we spontaneously decided to go see Harry Potter, so I just turned the pot off, and let it continue cooking when we came home.


Onion mush

Whilst the onions were cooking for the hour following Harry Potter, I got on with the moussaka.

189. Aubergine Moussaka


Ingredients

The recipe stipulates baby aubergines, which I’ve never seen before, even at Middle Eastern shops. By sheer coincidence, however, my local Asian grocer at Box Hill happened to have these really small cute eggplants which I thought would be appropriate. I still sliced them up, rather than leaving them whole as Nigella suggests, because I’m really not sure how big baby eggplants are supposed to be.

Here’s an indication of the size of the eggplants I found…


Eggplant in book


Eggplant slices

Mum: Ooh, so cute!

You start by browning the eggplants in oil, and then put them to the side. After that, you add sliced onions and garlic to the pan, then chick peas (I used tinned ones out of laziness), pomegranate molasses, tomatoes (fresh ones, which I prepared myself), spices and water.


Tomatoes – peeled, seeded and quartered by me!

Then just let it simmer for about an hour. Because of the dimensions of my pan (a massive Le Creuset casserole), it only took half an hour to cook. Then, I could go to bed!

This morning, I bagged up the now-cool onions and stashed them in the freezer. I haven’t quite decided how to eat them yet, but I think that a steak sandwich is the way forward.


onion mush baggies

Here’s the aubergine moussaka, which we ate for lunch today, served with rice. It doesn't look very attractive once cooked, but it tastes brilliant.


Aubergine Moussaka

I'm a huge fan of eggplants, and I loved their texture combined with the stew's gentle spiciness. My mother and brother also enjoyed it muchly. I'm taking the leftovers to work tonight.

Speaking of brisk efficiency, this morning I went to Rendinas butchery and bought lamb neck chops, two of which I’ve frozen so that I can make the lamb and bean braise from One & Two at short notice. The rest of the chops are currently being boiled, ready to become cawl. I also got some chipolatas, which I’ve frozen in anticipation of making the hot sausages with ice-cold oysters in the Dinner chapter. You wouldn't believe how incredibly satisfying it is to be organised and efficient.

Vegetable Curry in Vegetable Sauce

77. Vegetable Curry in Vegetable Sauce

I've made this one before, as in, before I started the How to Eat project, so I knew it'd be good. I made it yesterday, after lunch, and have frozen it up in 5 containers to defrost in the not-too-distant future. I've got two as single-serves, with rice in them, and the rest would feed two or so.


This "curry" is very tasty (but doesn't taste like any curry I'm accustomed too, hence the inverted commas; I'd be more likely to call it a stew), but is very light and doesn't fill you up for very long. So you'd really need some rice or couscous on the side if you want something substantial. I love it though, because it's just so mushily nutritious! I'm a big fan of the mushy vegetable cooked in sauce. And this "curry" is just onions, garlic, capsicum, carrots, mushrooms, turnips, cauliflower, parsnip, fennel, celery, zucchini and beans, cooked in spices and stock - but not drained, so all the nutrients stay in the pot. This is one of the very few super-virtuous meals you could eat on a cold Melbourne day without wanting to kill yourself. She suggests serving it with a raita made of low-fat fromage frais (What on earth is fromage frais? I'd just use yogurt), spring onions, ginger, mint and coriander. I've tried it before, and whilst it's a nice addition if you happen to have the ingredients to hand, it's not entirely necessary.

On the downside, however, it does take a while to prepare, what with all the chopping and peeling and stirring and simmering, but as Nigella says, "it's a worthwhile investment".

Wednesday Night Dinner

32. South Beach Black Bean Soup (Cooking in Advance)
33. Mushroom-Steak Sandwich (One & Two)

I started cooking the soup at 10pm on Monday night, after an ace episode of Desperate Housewives.

Step 1 – Boil black beans for 1.5 hours.



Step 2 – Sautée up some onion, garlic, shallots, and capsicum with spices.



Step 3 – Blend vegetables



Step 4 – Add veggies to black soup, forming an intensely BROWN sludge.

My dad walked into the kitchen at this point and said, “Mmm… something smells good!” Then he looked into the pot and said, “What the hell is that?” Thanks, Dad.

I left the soup, off the heat, in the pot for two days, and we ate it for dinner tonight, Wednesday.

We had some field mushrooms left over from the Steak and Kidney Pie filling (tomorrow’s lunch… watch this space!), so I decided to do the Mushroom-Steak Sandwiches as well.


South Beach Black Bean Soup - served with diced red onion, chopped coriander, sour cream, tabasco and lime juice (from a carton, because limes are expensive right now!)

This soup's really good, despite its ugliness. It tastes kinda Mexican, because of the spices. It's pretty hearty too.

For the sandwiches, you cover some field mushrooms with a mixture of butter, garlic and parsley, and bake them for 20 minutes.


Mushrooms in oven

According to the recipe, you should then wodge them in a ciabatta or baguette with some lettuce, lemon juice, and Dijon mustard. However, I was out shopping all day today, and forgot to buy any bread. We had some Turkish Pide in the freezer, but when defrosted, it was amazingly both rock hard and soggy at the same time. So plastic white bread it was. It tasted good though. The mushrooms were incredibly flavoursome, and have a great, chewy texture. I am totally making this again, and with proper bread next time.

The sandwich recipe is actually also in Nigel Slater's Real Food, and ever since I got that book, I've been dreaming about it. It did not disappoint.


Sandwich

Sunday Dinner

This is the Anglicised Involtini, which is one of the “Six Ideas for Kitchen Suppers” from the Dinner chapter. So far, I’ve done three of the six, (including the involtini) and they’ve all been great! The others I've tried are the One-Pan Chicken and the Tagliatelle with Chicken from the Venetian Ghetto.

24. Breadcrumbs (Basics etc.)

Lucky for me, the list of ingredients included breadcrumbs, which gave me an opportunity to cross another recipe off my list. We don’t tend to get breadcrumb-friendly bread at our house – it’s either dense, dark, intensely grained bread, sweet egg-bread (like challah) or super-plastic WonderWhite supermarket bread. So on Friday I picked up a small white block loaf from Baker’s Delight, cut the crusts off half the slices and let them dry out for a couple of days. Saturday night I whizzed them up in a processor, and let them dry out in that round metal dish you see there…


Fresh Breadcrumbs

After hiving off the two tablespoons required for the recipe, I put the rest into two zip-lock glad bags and chucked them in the freezer.

25. Anglicised Involtini

Nigella has a few versions of this – griddled eggplants rolled around a filling. There’s the “Soft and Sharp Involtini” from Nigella Bites, the “Involtini” in Feast, and the “Eggplant and Feta Rolls” in Forever Summer. I’ve done the Soft and Sharp, and the Eggplant and Feta Rolls, and can heartily recommend both of them!

You make this in stages. Firstly, griddle some thinly sliced eggplants. Then make the filling, roll the eggplant slices around the filling and arrange snugly in a dish. Pour over tomato passata and arrange some thinly sliced mozzarella over the top. I did the griddling and filling this afternoon and let them sit in the fridge until dinner time. I got fourteen rolls out of the mixture, even though Nigella says you’ll get 12. I think I just wasn’t as generous as she is with the filling, so could stretch it over more eggplant slices. (By the way, I griddled more slices than Nigella suggested because I absolutely love eggplant and wanted to munch whilst cooking).

The filling itself has Lancashire/Provolone cheese (see below), breadcrumbs (see above), pine nuts, raisins, basil, parmesan cheese, garlic, olive oil and an egg. It smells brilliant!


Assembly Line


Ready to go in the fridge

Now, about ingredients… Nigella calls this an “Anglicised” involtini because she suggests Lancashire cheese instead of Provolone, as Lancashire is apparently easier to find in the UK. Well, this is Australia, and Italian cheeses are much more readily available, so Provolone it is. I found mine at my favourite Greek deli in Box Hill. I think it’d be a bit of a mission to find Lancashire; I’d have to trek down to Victoria Market or the Richmond Hill Café and Larder or something… Furthermore, I used ordinary mozzarella instead of buffalo, as it’s cheaper. And you only need a few slices, so I didn’t want to feel guilty about having leftovers.

So at around 6:30, I preheated the oven and finished off making the dish. The recipe specifies 150ml tomato passata, but I didn’t think this was enough so added quite a bit more to get a generous blanket of red. Nigella says to arrange the slices of mozzarella down the centre “like a snowman’s buttons”, but I was thinking more like Santa Claus…


Mmmm....

Ooh, Nigella also says to drizzle with olive oil, and to add salt and pepper before baking it, but I forgot. I thought it tasted great, and I already found it quite oily as it was, because of all the cheese. But maybe you should try it with the olive oil. My friend DG has made the Feast involtini before, and said, "I think it's the olive oil that makes it in the Feast recipe, it melds with the tomato sauce and is gorgeous".

Unusually, even though the recipe serves four, my parents and I almost finished the whole thing. I didn’t make a proper side dish, just a few crunchy salad leaves, which worked really well.

This was so delicious! We all loved it, a lot. This is definitely a keeper. I think you might have noticed a pattern with my dad – he’s quite effusive and no matter what I cook, he’ll automatically say “This is good”, “this is really nice”, “you’re good at cooking”, before he decides whether he actually likes it or not. But this one, he really, really, truly loved.

Dad: This is so perfect. Today I was just thinking to myself, “I’d like lasagna for dinner”, and you’ve made something so similar. Better, in fact!

Aww… thanks Dad!

Dad had a glass of cabernet sauvignon to go with, and my mother a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Now, my mum’s not much of a drinker. However, she desperately wanted me to say that she had a whole glass of wine with her dinner. This is, of course, testament to the fact that she enjoyed the meal, and not the start of a secret drinking problem…